


omnivorous

by suganii (feints)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (mostly) Canon Compliant, And we don't talk enough about that, Asahi Week 2021, Gen, Minor Shimizu Kiyoko/Sugawara Koushi, Missing Scene, Underrated friendships, character exploration, happy birthday shimizu kiyoko!, i just think that asahi and kiyoko would be very good friends, no betas we die like daichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28619187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feints/pseuds/suganii
Summary: On the first day of the new year, Asahi steels himself to head toward Takeda-sensei's office to officially tell him he's quitting. He's stupid and noble like that, but at least he won't have to do it all alone.
Relationships: Azumane Asahi & Shimizu Kiyoko
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	omnivorous

**Author's Note:**

> for **asahi week, day 2** : growth / loss
> 
> this was also meant to be a sugakiyo thing, hence the little sugakiyo snippet i snuck in there, but i mostly just wanted to talk about asahi and kiyoko's friendship. all asahi friendships are really underrated in general, but i think especially kiyoko might have a bit of a unique perspective on asahi quitting the club entirely given that she quit the track-and-field team herself before.
> 
> sorry if this reads a little rushed, this is just a short piece of musings i wrote yesterday trying to get it out in time for kiyoko's birthday, but then, things happened. and it didn't feel right to publish this yet. 
> 
> so here it is today instead, unbeta-ed. enjoy!

Asahi fidgets by the door of the classroom, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, eyes finding a speck on the floor and fixing his gaze on it as he waits. He tries to ignore the looks from the other students leaving the classroom, the whispers, some lowly-muttered and some not, no doubt all about the tall volleyball player who was partially blocking the doorway.

He’s heard worse elsewhere anyway. He’s heard worse from himself.

Finally, Shimizu appears, her bag strapped to her back, gazing at him with her expression smoothed out.

“Thank you for waiting, Azumane,” she says. “Shall we go?”

“Yes, thank you, Shimizu.”

He clears his throat as they walk, scratching at his chin as he dares another sideways glance at her. “Thank you for doing this with me,” he ventures.

“Of course.”

Asahi anticipates it, so he isn’t surprised when Shimizu sighs, before levelling a firm gaze at him. The look in her eyes takes him aback; though she almost seems exasperated, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Azumane, do you really think that if you wanted to quit, that any of us would stop you?”

 _Oh_.

He clears his throat but doesn’t answer. His chest hurts.

Shimizu’s voice has noticeably softened when she talks to him next. He almost protests. “Listen, Azumane. I don’t think any of the guys will ever blame you for the last game going the way it did. And if you think that volleyball isn’t for you anymore, that’s fine too.”

She clears her throat, before laying a hand on his shoulder gently.

He can remember there was a time when she wouldn’t even have touched him. It’s taken the both of them a long time to get to this point of ease with each other.

Looking up, he realises they’ve arrived at the teacher’s staffroom. All he has to do now is go inside and let Takeda-sensei know that he’s withdrawing from the team. In just a few minutes, his time with the volleyball club will be well and truly over.

When he meets Shimizu’s gaze, her eyes are kind. “I know you. You’ve probably thought long and hard about this. All the same, Azumane,” she tells him, something flashing in her eyes briefly, easy to miss but for how long he’s known her, “don’t let this be a choice you regret. Letting go isn’t as easy as you think.”

She dips her head. “I’ll be waiting for you here.”

Asahi thanks her, throat working, taking a deep breath.

He knows that what he’s doing is the right thing. The noble thing.

The cowardly thing.

Still, he can’t let himself be the reason his team is pulled back down again. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he became the reason the team fell apart. No, it might actually make him hate volleyball for good, and he loves volleyball, and his team, too much to let that happen.

One step forward, two steps, three.

All the same, Shimizu’s words swirl in his mind.

There aren’t many who know about her past, her scars. Asahi and Suga are two of the few who do, and as he ponders on her words, his feet taking him to Takeda-sensei’s table all the while, he wonders if she had ever felt it. If she had ever felt this hurt taking hold and burrowing itself under his skin, bitter and heart-stopping and heavy.

Did she feel regret at not taking the opportunity to join up with the track-and-field team at Karasuno? Did she think she was holding herself back?

No, she had been happy. She _still_ is—she had grown fond of her time at the volleyball club, that was what she’d said, of her time supporting them all in whatever ways she could.

Asahi wants that too. He wants to be able to make peace with this one choice some day.

“Can I help you?” Takeda-sensei looks up at him expectantly, his smile not faltering even as Azumane bows briefly to him.

He must know why Asahi’s here, when Asahi’s been absent for more than a week, when Asahi’s here all alone, an unmistakeable form in his hand. Asahi’s chest hurts, squeezes like a vice.

He straightens himself. Takes the hurt and pushes it down, down, down.

“Takeda-sensei…”

* * *

Kiyoko fields a text from Suga as she waits for Azumane, hoisting her backpack higher over her shoulders. Any minute now, Azumane should be done with his talk, and she glances at the doorway occasionally, looking for the tell-tale broad shoulders and man bun to recognise him by.

Her lips tug down at the corners in a frown, shoulders slumping. Although she’s been the manager of the volleyball club for the past two years, sometimes it still feels like she’s fumbling around in the dark.

Even disregarding her worries about Azumane, she’d asked him to remind Takeda-sensei about the sign-up form as he left. She can only hope that there are more than three names on that list, but she knows not to expect too much, not when there were fewer students registered into Karasuno this year than there has been for the past few years.

_If only there was a way to help them all..._

Just then, her phone lights up with another email.

 **_koushi:_ ** _r u with asahi rn?_

Kiyoko has never been one to lie.

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _Yes._

She can almost hear Suga’s thoughts before the words materialise on her phone screen. Her heart sinks.

 **_koushi:_ ** _so hes rly doing it then…_

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _Did you want me to stop him?_

 **_koushi:_ ** _no no. its his decision, not ours…_

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _Yes, and it has absolutely nothing to do with you, or Nishinoya. Don’t blame yourself for this._

Suga takes time to compose his next message.

Kiyoko knows if it were up to her, she would say the words willingly, over and over until he’d believe them, but Suga should want to convince himself. Her breath leaves her in a soft exhale as she reads his words.

 **_koushi:_ ** _i know_

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _I’ll tell him to talk to you when he’s ready._

 **_koushi_ ** _: i know u will_

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _*hugs*_

There must be something she can do.

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _Do you want to get some mapo tofu later?_

 **_koushi_ ** _: pls!_

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _Okay then. It’s a date!_

She smiles down at her phone.

 **_koushi:_ ** _!!! u cant just say that_

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _I can and I did. I love you, Koushi-chan._

 **_koushi:_ ** _ah stop pls ure making me blush_

 **_kiyoko:_ ** _Good. <3_

She hopes he know just how much she would hold him up, if he’d let her.

 **_koushi:_ ** _kiyoko-chan omg_

 **_koushi_ ** _: i love you too <3_

A familiar worry simmers in her throat, tasting sour on her tongue, but she forces it back down with a gulp. As manager of the volleyball club, she knows she could’ve tried harder to dissuade Azumane. As his friend though, she knows she did right.

It doesn’t stop the concern. Suga has been hurting, and there isn’t anything she can do about it, only remind him that his worth is not contingent on wins and losses, on all he can do for his team.

There’s more to life than volleyball, more to life than even in her time in high school. It’s a truth that’s taken her time to swallow.

She knows exactly what Azumane’s going through. She can only hope that Azumane will learn the truth she did too, but only time will tell if he has made a decision he’ll be able to live with. She lifts her head in a small smile as she finally spots her friend making his way to her, a clipboard clutched to his chest.

“So?” she asks.

He shakes his head, his brows knitting together, knotting, and she taps him gently on the shoulder once again, brow arching. “You know... this isn’t the end, Azumane. You’re still free to swing by my classroom anytime.”

“Ah, okay.”

He ducks his head, but a small grin steals onto his face, and she shakes her head at him, amused. He could crush her with his arms but just as easily he would let himself be crushed with words. A big body housing a heart of glass.

“Seriously, Azumane,” she tells him, almost reprimanding. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t,” he says.

She watches him make his way down the hall, his hands in his pants pockets, shoulders slouched, footsteps loud in a way that belies the thoughts still weighing him down, like heavy anchors for every step.

She turns away and goes back the way she came, marching toward where Daichi and Suga are waiting for her. It’s the first day of the new year, the first day of her last year as a manager for Karasuno. She’s determined to start it right.

* * *

(Later, much later, on a hot summer afternoon when they’re sitting under the shade of a tree, hundreds of miles away from Karasuno, by the gym of a private school somewhere in Saitama nibbling watermelon bits, he’ll ask her what she’d meant about letting go.

“Hmm,” she’ll hum, accepting a napkin from Suga on her other side, engaged in his conversation with Daichi. She’ll dab watermelon juice from her lips delicately, thinking.

“I guess… I just wanted you to know quitting was okay.” She’ll pause, lips twitching in a smile that’s rarer to get out of her, somehow, when they’re in the company of too many people. It’ll make Asahi feel blessed, make Asahi’s chest warm, the way her presence has always done. “What makes you happy, Azumane?”

“Huh?”

“Does being here with us, playing volleyball, make you happy?” she’ll elaborate.

The question will strike Asahi like a flash of sunlight refracted, and he’ll duck his head. Search his feelings earnestly, surprised that after all this time, the answer comes easy. “Yes.”

“Then that’s good enough.”

Asahi will laugh, warm from the dry summer wind, and he’ll feel the blades of grass under his hand as he leans back into a green, green afternoon. The air around him will be filled with chatter from teenagers all around him, chewing on their own watermelons, passing volleyballs, chasing each other around the place. He’ll tilt his head up toward the sun, feeling beads of sweat trickle down his face. Everything will be distilled down to a single point in the present, the now that he’s living in. The now that’s passing him by, that he allows to carry him along like a stream, murmurs of volleyball and competitions and life.

“Yeah,” he’ll say. “Yeah.”

Beside Shimizu, Suga and Daichi will echo with their own matching grins, and Asahi will feel at peace.)


End file.
